Tucson, Arizona (CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords continues to make progress in her recovery, with doctors estimating she could be released from the hospital as soon as "days to weeks."

Giffords, who was wounded in the January 8 mass shooting in Arizona, underwent a successful procedure Saturday to repair a fracture in the roof of her right eye socket, doctors said Monday.

The congresswoman tolerated the two-hour, minor operation well, and is "back at that same baseline where she was before surgery," said Dr. Michael Lemole, chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center.

The operation was necessary, he said, because bone fragments were pushing down on Giffords' eye. When she arrived at the hospital shortly after the shooting, doctors did a quick operation but "did not want to do the full repair" because she was in critical condition.

The operation involved opening a window in Giffords' skull through an incision over her eyebrow, removing the rim of her eye socket, removing the bone fragments and then reconstructing the socket with the help of metal mesh, doctors said. She will need another skull repair surgery, but that will be done later.

Asked when Giffords might be released from the hospital and into a rehabilitation center, Lemole said it could be as soon as "days to weeks."

Doctors also took a breathing tube out of Giffords' nose, but inserted a second one into her neck. That tube does not allow her to get air past her vocal cords, meaning she cannot talk, said trauma surgeon Dr. Randall Friese. It can be switched out later with a tube that will allow her to speak, he said. Giffords could mouth words "when she's ready to do that," he said.

A feeding tube also was inserted, doctors said.

Asked about a report that Giffords gave her husband, Mark Kelly, a neck rub, Lemole said, "there's a lot of inference there" but said "it does imply that she's recognizing him."

Doctors do not know whether she can see out of both eyes, he said, as that is pending a detailed examination.

Kelly has told doctors that he has seen her smile, Friese said. "We're all very optimistic, so we could be wrong, but we all want to see the best and sometimes we see what we want to see. But if he says she's smiling, I buy it."

The other two patients still hospitalized from the shooting are in good condition, he said, and are close to being discharged.

Giffords was upgraded from critical to serious condition on Sunday, eight days after being shot in the head at a public event.

A total of 19 people were shot at the "Congress on Your Corner" event outside a Tucson supermarket. Authorities believe Giffords was the target of the mass shooting that left six dead and another 13 wounded. A 22-year-old suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, is in custody.

On Sunday, the funeral for victim Dorwan Stoddard took place in Tucson. Witnesses said when the gunfire rang out, Stoddard, 76, was trying to protect his wife, Mavy, when he was shot in the head and fell onto her.

A memorial for Gabriel "Gabe" Zimmerman, 30, also took place Sunday. Zimmerman was director for community outreach on Giffords' staff and was engaged to be married.

At a Martin Luther King Jr. Day protest over school policies, the head of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP Monday announced a campaign to urge the CIAA basketball tournament and other groups to boycott the city.

Pledging to "expose Charlotte for the racist bastion it is," NAACP President Kojo Nantambu announced a drive to keep the CIAA, NCAA, PGA "and any other 'A'" from coming to Charlotte.

He also said his group would ask the national NAACP to consider asking the Democratic Party not to hold its 2012 convention in Charlotte.

His comments came just before he led about 100 people on a march through uptown to protest the decision by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to hold classes on the King holiday to make up one of three days lost to snow last week.

Carrying signs and chanting "No justice, no peace," the group marched to the Levine Museum of the New South and on to the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture.

The protest came on a day that many interracial and interfaith groups joined to mark the holiday and honor King's memory. And it came on the heels of other controversies involving schools and the African-American community.

Many in the mainly African-American crowd who gathered in the morning chill outside the government center were fired up over the school's holiday decision.

"We will not sit here and allow you to disrespect not just an American hero but a global hero," NAACP vice president Dwayne Collins told protesters. Speaking to the crowd, Deshauna McLamb, who brought her two children to the rally, said: "This city has run havoc over this community."

"And today we're saying 'No more, no more.'"

School closings at root

In November, the NAACP and others protested a school board decision to close eight schools. Officials acknowledged the closings would disproportionately affect minority families. At least seven complaints are pending with the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights.

"I think there's a lot of deep concern about public education in particular that is perhaps mushrooming into other things," Mayor Anthony Foxx said of the proposed boycott. "A greater level of informed dialog is needed... particularly given all the challenges we're facing in the next six (to) eight months with local governmental budgets."

Nantambu said school officials "never would use the 4th of July or Easter or Christmas as an alternative (school) day." In an interview with the Observer on Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said using the King holiday as a makeup day was "clearly insulting and hits a very raw nerve."

Foxx has said the holiday makeup day was "regrettable." But, he said, "Given the challenges so many young people are facing, it's hard for me to make the argument that if class is in session they shouldn't go."

U.S. Rep Mel Watt, speaking at a Queens University of Charlotte event, said "the mayor's reaction was where I would come down." Watt, who is from Charlotte and represents N.C.'s 12th district, called Nantambu's description of Charlotte as a bastion of racism "probably a little overboard."

The Democratic National Committee is expected to name a site this month for its 2012 convention. Charlotte is one of four finalists. Will Miller, executive director of the group trying to bring the gathering to Charlotte, said Monday he hopes a boycott "wouldn't become an issue."

"I would hope that's not the sentiment of more than a few people, if that's the case," he said.

How many parents kept their children out of school Monday was unclear. A spokeswoman for Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools said attendance figures weren't available Monday.

But many African-American parents had no problem sending their kids to school.

"The best way to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King is to have our children in school," said the Rev. John Hicks, a Davidson pastor and member of the Carolinas Public Insight Network, a group of readers who share their knowledge for Observer stories.

"I would seriously doubt that Dr. King would be happy to know that local leaders would prefer having kids stay home and play video games rather than get an education," added Hicks, whose son attends middle school.

"After seeing the test scores for CMS, the NAACP should be the LAST organization in Charlotte to protest any day our children are not in school when the doors open."

Many schools throughout CMS incorporated King in the day's lessons.

At Rocky River High, for example, students in a 9th grade literacy class studied connections between King and Mahatma Gandhi of India. A literature class analyzed King's use of language, including his cadence syntax and his call-and-response technique.

One Rocky River student who missed classes for the uptown protest was 10th-grader Colby Johnson.

"I wanted to do more than read about the dream," he said. "I wanted to live it."

US public pensions face a shortfall of $2,500 billion that will force state and local governments to sell assets and make deep cuts to services, according to the former chairman of New Jersey’s pension fund.

“One consequence is that asset sales and privatisation will pick up. The very unfortunate consequence is that various safety nets for the most vulnerable citizens will be cut back.”

Mr Kramer, an influential figure in the Democratic party and still a member of the investment council that oversees the New Jersey pension fund, has been an outspoken critic of public pension accounting, which allows for the averaging of investment gains and losses over a number of years through a process called “smoothing”.

Using data from the states, the Pew Center on the States, a research group, has estimated a funding gap for pension, healthcare and other non-pension benefits, such as life assurance, of at least $1,000 billion as of the end of fiscal 2008.

Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, said in his state of the state speech last week that, without reform, the unfunded liability of the state’s pension system would rise from $54 billion now to $183 billion within 30 years.

Mr Kramer’s estimates are based on the assets and liabilities of the top 25 public pension funds at the end of 2010. The gap has risen from an estimate of more than $2,000 billion at the end of 2009.

He also used a market rate analysis based on the accounting used by corporate pension funds rather than the 8 percent rate of return that most public funds use in calculations. Pension liabilities are not included in state and local government debt figures.

WASHINGTON – Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, defending herself against criticism following the Tucson, Ariz., shootings, said Monday that she used the term "blood libel" to describe comments made by those who falsely tried to link conservatives to the assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Speaking out for the first time since she used the term in a video, Palin said on Fox's Sean Hannity show that the term referred to those "falsely accused of having blood on their hands."

Some Jewish groups strongly protested her use of the term, which historically was used to accuse Jews of using blood of Christians in religious rituals.

"I think the critics again were using anything that they could gather out of that statement," she said. "You can spin up anything out of anybody's statements that are released and use them against the person who is making the statement."

Palin said her political action committee's use of crosshairs to identify targeted congressional districts for Republican pickups was not original and has been used by Democrats. As she spoke, a Democratic map was shown on the screen with circular targets of districts Democrats wanted to win.

The former governor said the crosshairs graphic was taken down by the PAC's hired graphic artist after the criticism began. "I don't think that was inappropriate," she said

The shooting on Jan. 8 killed six and wounded 13, including Giffords. Her district was among those in the Palin site's crosshairs.

Palin insisted that she has "repeated over and over my condemnation of violence." She said she was frustrated that conservatives who responded to false accusations _blaming them for the shootings — have become part of the story.

Asked why she was singled out for criticism, Palin, speaking from her hometown of Wasilla, said, "I know that a lot of those on the left hate my message and they will do all they can to stop me because they don't like the message."

Palin added, "I receive a lot of death threats. My children do."

The former governor said she supported calls for civility in politics but added, "we should not use an event like that in Arizona to stifle debate."

Asked what she thought of Obama's speech at a memorial for the victims, Palin said, "I thought there were parts of it that really hit home that all of us can hold onto and live out."

Palin received lower marks for her handling of the tragedy from more Americans than President Barack Obama did, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday found.

Nearly 8 in 10 of those surveyed gave Obama high marks for his response, and 71 percent of Republicans approved of Obama's leadership after the shootings, the Post reported. About 30 percent of those polled approved of Palin's response; among Republicans, her positive marks rose to 56 percent.

More than half of those polled said the tone of the country's political discourse didn't contribute to the shootings.

The poll of 1,053 adults, conducted by telephone Jan. 13-16, had a margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.